Learning to Swear
by narrizan
Summary: It's a new language and he's not sure if it's a good or a bad thing. Rated T for some swearing & mature themes. LaviYuu. Don't own, not for profit but for fun (& love) Nothing but more introspection really. As Bookman Junior he's allowed it, no? Pt 1 of the 49 Days series on AO3


Work Text:

He's been around those older and wiser all his life, thus no stranger to swears and cursing. He's been around soldiers and sailors and adept at it with the best of them on land or at sea, but truly he's never been comfortable with it. Not really. Perhaps his earliest memories of Sister-Nuns of a missionaries' orphanage has something to do with it, and being around Bookman also has a lot to do with it but he has never been comfortable with it, no not really. (But perhaps he was younger, and not so clever as he thinks himself to be) and add to that that swears and curses have never really made it to a historical record.

Since coming to the Order though, he's learning a little, because Kanda Yuu swears brilliantly and beautifully with so much colour. With him they are like actually sentences if you know how to parse the meaning from the way he says them.

The flash of the dark eyes. Not just dark, but deep with the hue of midnight, tinged with just a hint of starlight, but Lavi - his forty ninth persona - might also be adding aesthetics where there are none. That flash is usually accompanied by a the narrowing and deep furrow of straight brows almost pointing in an arrow downwards towards the line of his nose, and there is just a touch of almost controlled dilation of nostril. That twitch of muscle just at the temple, and the set of his Yuu's perfect jaw.

The first time that he's faced with it up close is when, and never mind any hidden histories, this is Black Order fact, he calls out "Yuu!". Apparently unaware that he wasn't - isn't - supposed to call him by any other name than 'Kanda'. Two things that surprised him was that the presence of ladies, yes Lenalee was there, does not deter nor dampen the swearing a single iota. Neither does the presence of elders, because Bookman remains unfazed and Tiedoll has probably accepted this as one of 'Life's' true facts. Lavi has since learned to swear anywhere but himself keeps a lid on it when there are ladies around and especially tries his best when Bookman is around. That he has to try is testament enough to Yuu's influence.

They swear at each other, teasing or in jest, in hate and in those hidden-moments-places that are not. During training and on missions, together or through the crackle of golems miles apart in commiseration and during not-dared-shared-sorrows they cannot speak of out loud.

When Kanda swears into Lavi's mouth as he licked off the blood trickled there, in the shadow of a crumbled wall, a harried press of lips so fast and then he was gone off somewhere. Lavi questions if it happened at all or just the fevered imaginings heralding a concussion, left standing there quite like the simpleton Yuu claims him to be. He's not sure but maybe it means, 'be careful'.

The swears that says Kanda will go no matter the danger is a come-hither-dare 'You with me or not, cos' fuck if I care that you aren't' when he does, really he does. Because they're accustomed to Kanda taking point and Lavi having his back, even if he does use his first name with impertinence and has -mostly- resigned himself to that.

The -off that Lavi gets when he's crouched down with a hand on a shoulder and the other to help him up is actually 'Thank you' even as I-can-manage is left hanging silent in the air between them.

When three months bleed into six and into a year, two and now it's their third year. Lavi is learning to swear because Yuu has the right of it as he swings between feeling and not, twists between being Lavi and Bookman Junior and wonders if the only two people that notice and care are precisely the ones that cannot and does not seem to. Within new stone walls the swearing is a prelude to unholy, sinful things but feels-so-right how-is-it-wrong in their young, rebellious minds and bodies giving in to it with much abandonment and a lot of swearing. Just to give vent.

While the swears and curses have bloomed into a language all their own, the Beansprout is privy to this, by default and proximity and if he sometimes gets let in on the conversation that is unspoken permission on their part. They never quite manage to actually say words that could-mean-something but fear stops them, and Lavi knows, just knows that it might actually be too late one day. They are in the midst of an effing war after all and people do die, get taken away or run out of curse-reviving spells. Or they become Bookmen and in those moments of realisation, with no Kanda, or anyone but Lavi and his heart and no Bookmen - Elder or Junior - in sight, he curses to the high heavens and oh Yuu would be so proud of him, because he learnt from the best.


End file.
